Vygotsky


 * Lev Semionovich Vygotsky**

Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist whose work is based on two key ideas. First, he proposed that intellectual development can be understood only in terms of the historical and cultural contexts children experience. Second, he believed that development depends on the __sign systems__ that individuals grow up with, which are the symbols which a culture creates to help people think, communicate, and solve problems. Vygotsky strongly believed that cognitive development is strongly linked to the input from others, but he also believed that the sign systems that children acquire are done so in an invariant sequence of steps, that is the same for all children.

The main concept of Vygotsky's theory was that learning precedes development. Learning involves the acquisition of signs through instruction and information from others. When a child is able to internalize these signs in order to be able to think and solve problems without the help of others is referred to as __self-regulation__.
 * How Development Occurs**

Self-regulations involves three steps: First, a child will learn that actions and sounds have meaning. Second, in order to develop internal structures and self-regulation, it takes practice. And lastly, an individual will use signs to think and solve problems without the assistance of others.

Other important aspects of cognitive development according to Vygotsky, relate to private speech, zone of proximal development, scaffolding, and cooperative learning.
 * Private Speech, Zone of Proximal Development, & Scaffolding**

__Private speech__ refers to the self-talk children tend to do, which guides their thinking and actions, and is eventually internalized as silent inner speech. Children are able to incorporate the speech of others and then use that speech to help themselves solve problems.

The __zone of proximal development__ refers to the level of development immediately above a person's present level. Vygotsky believed that learning takes place when children are working within their zone of proximal development. These type of tasks are those that a child cannot yet do on his own but could do with the assistance of a more competent peer or adult.

Another key idea derived from Vygotsky's idea of social learning is __scaffolding__. This technique provides the child with a great deal of support during the early stages of learning and then the support is diminished over time, allowing the child to take on greater responsibility when he is able.

All of Vygotsky's theories support the use of __cooperative learning__. This type of learning allows children to work together to help one another learn. This is the part of learning that ties all of Vygotsky's ideas together: peers are usually operating within each other's zone of proximal development and they are able to provide models for each other of slightly more advanced thinking. Also, cooperative learning allows a child's inner speech available to others, so they are able to gain insight into one another's reasoning process. Vygotsky believed more peer interaction lead to children moving forward in their thinking.
 * All of this leads to cooperative learning...**

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Additional resources: http://www.learning-theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html